Pentagon proceeding cautiously on potential aid drop
By MATTHEW LEE and PAULINE JELINEK
Associated Press
May 9, 2008
Page 2 of 2
The U.S. Air Force moved more airplanes to a staging area in Thailand and the Navy transported Marines of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit and helicopters into Thailand from an aviation combat element of the USS Essex expeditionary strike group, officials said. The Essex and other Navy ships began heading later Thursday toward waters off Myanmar, a journey that Mullen said would take five days.
The Navy happened to have ships and thousands of service members in the Gulf of Thailand for a multinational exercise on humanitarian missions -- an exercise called Cobra Gold that started Thursday.
''The Essex group ... either has or is (still) offloading some helicopters to be available in Thailand, because they could reach Myanmar in a very short -- in a matter of hours from Thailand -- with relief supplies,'' Gates said. ''There are also I think six C-130s available.''
Officials said that although the military junta has not agreed to allow U.S. humanitarian assistance, it did ask for some other U.S. help -- satellite pictures of the cyclone-devastated areas.
''They asked our defense attache at the embassy in Rangoon for some imagery and we provided it,'' said Marine Maj. Stuart Upton, a Pentagon spokesman.
Separately, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution urging humanitarian aid to Myanmar's people and asking Myanmar's government to remove restrictions on international aid groups.
Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts said in a statement that the cyclone ''could be remembered as the moment when the United States and the world came to the aid of the Burmese people and made it clear that while we loathe the junta that has isolated Burma from the world and oppressed its citizens, we find common cause with the people of Burma and we will be there by their side at this difficult time.''
---
Associated Press writer Foster Klug contributed to this report.
>> Back -- Page 1 2
Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
++ Discuss this topic in The Forum
This page has not been rated.
| 
